Nearly 30 years after K’s Choice’s breakthrough hit “Not An Addict” helped define an era of alternative rock, Sam Bettens is revisiting the song from a place he never could have imagined in 1995. The Belgian singer-songwriter, whose distinctive voice powered one of the decade’s most enduring anthems, has re-recorded the track as a stripped-down, deeply personal reflection of the life he’s lived since.
“Not An Addict (Sam’s Version)” is featured on Sam’s latest solo album, Coming Home, produced in Nashville by four-time Academy of Country Music Guitar Player of the Year Tom Bukovac, which was released in September 2025. The album is a deeply personal and inspired by Americana and the country music he listened to for years living in East Tennessee, where he spent over a decade immersed in American roots culture and even worked as a professional firefighter while continuing to record and tour with K’s Choice.
Sam, one of the most visible transgender artists to emerge from the alternative rock world of the 1990s, openly shares his journey of transition, identity, and artistic reinvention through his music, and this new take on his band’s enduring hit is no different. What began as a reluctant exercise in nostalgia evolved into a creative rediscovery, one that allowed him to reconnect with a song that has accompanied every chapter of his journey.
In our conversation, Sam reflects on the whirlwind rise of K’s Choice, the lasting impact of “Not An Addict,” and the freedom he’s found since his transition. He also opens up about falling in love with Americana music, recording his new album Coming Home in Nashville with legendary musicians, and why connection remains the thread linking every stage of his life; from international rock stardom to firefighting, songwriting, and beyond. The result is an artist who sounds not only revitalized, but entirely at home in his own story.
Tell me a little bit about how K’s Choice came together initially.
So, it started with my brother way back when. We were both still going to school and I had done one little project as a solo artist through a friend of a friend, dad of a friend who knew someone, and he had heard me sing. And so, I sang on… it was some kind of project for a short film and then I told the label, “I actually have a brother too, and we play sometimes.” And at that time, it was really low-key. We would play for some friends, and it’s not like we were really putting a band together or anything. It was just very occasionally. But I said, “We do play together sometimes. Would you like to hear some songs?” And so, then we got signed having basically only three or four songs written. They kind of took a chance on us, this indie label that had an affiliation with Sony back in Belgium. That was our first record deal, and it just all moved very fast. We didn’t even finish that year in school. Everything started moving so fast and that was the beginning.
How did the success of “Not An Addict” in the ’90s impact you when it initially came out?
Gosh, at the very beginning you never think as a Belgian band…we never thought that we would ever leave Belgium or that we could even make a career out of music. That was something that was not within our possibilities. And before we knew it – even with our first record – we were we had an opportunity to open for Bryan Adams in Paris in front of 15,000 people and we opened for the Indigo Girls here in the States. All these things started happening to us and it just started rolling.
“Not an Addict” was on the second album and that really just gave us our career in the States because then Alanis Morissette noticed us on a stage somewhere in Germany and invited us to tour here. That kind of that kind of made “Not an Addict” take off here in the States. And so yeah, it was a whirlwind, really. When I look back, we definitely enjoyed it. We had a blast but also, when you’re that young, you don’t realize how crazy it is what you’re doing and how much luck we had, and how things just kept moving forward for us. And when you’re in it, especially with a label and a manager, you’re always looking ahead, and you’re always thinking of like, how can this get bigger and what’s the next thing? And now, I’m in this stage of my life where everything is such a gift, and I enjoy it on such a different level – and I’m very aware of how special it is that I still get to do it.
What inspired you after 30 years to revisit the song?
Honestly, at first someone suggested it and I was like, “Ugh. Do we have to?” I don’t have a love/hate with “Not An Addict”. I love it. We still play it live and I’m very grateful to that song. It opened a lot of doors for us but I’ve also grown as a person and as a musician and a songwriter, and you’re just like, “I don’t really want to revisit something. I’d like to look at, what I’m doing now and look into the future.”
But then, I was messing around on the guitar and came up with this little finger-picking thing that I thought, “Oh, this actually might be sweet.” And then I started looking at it as more of a challenge and really a way to reinterpret this song that’s meant so much to so many people and also let people know, okay, this is where I am right now with it. This is how I feel. There was a radio station in Belgium that kind of wanted me to come by and play something that I hadn’t done before, a different version, an acoustic version, and I thought, “Oh, this will be perfect for that, I’ll just do that.” And then I ended up falling in love with it and I thought, “I’ve got to record this because I really think this is a nice way for people to reconnect with this old song.”
I know people they like things the way they like them a lot of the time. Did you feel pressure reimagining the song in such a different way?
Not really. And I know exactly what you mean. A lot of people are like, “Please, just don’t touch it. Just let it be what it is.” And that’s fine. I feel that way about a lot of other songs. So, I can see why people would feel that way about this song. But honestly, 30 years into my career, I don’t think anyone can give me any kind of pressure at this point that I’m really going to care about. Like I said, it’s something I wanted to do, and that’s always been my number one criteria. Is this fun for me? Yeah. Is this something that’s going to challenge me creatively? Is this something I want to listen to myself? And if the answer to all those questions is yes, then I’m going to do it.
You said that the song has followed you through every version of your life. How does it feel to sing it now after your transition?
I don’t want to want it to sound too corny, but I think post-transition, it’s almost like everything just feels lighter or something. Even on stage…I’ve always felt pretty comfortable on stage, but there’s something about being myself now standing there, there’s like a little bit of awkwardness that’s gone or something. Definitely a weight lifted off my shoulders, but also just like a comfort level. If something goes wrong, if someone makes fun of me, everything just kind of like washes off of me so much easier because I know who I am. I don’t know how else to explain it. So, it’s a very different way of walking through life and it translates on stage as well. I found a comfort level that is just new to me.
You’re one of the more visible transgender artists to come out of that alternative scene from the ’90s. How has that authenticity shaped your artistic journey moving forward?
It’s given me almost like, I don’t want to say second chance because K’s Choice luckily is still going strong in Europe and we’ve had a wonderful career. But it does feel almost like a new lease on life. And, when you feel all the way comfortable in your how you’re presenting yourself and in your own body…I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel like a 25-year-old when I wake up in the morning but it does make everything fresh again if that makes any sense. Like, 30 years into a career, it definitely becomes a challenge to keep things interesting and not “Oh, I’ve done this before. I’ve been here before.” And with this new album in combination with my transition, I feel like I’m 25 as far as the enthusiasm that I have for it, how badly I want to get on stage and sing these songs and share this with people. How much I’m looking forward to interviews and talking about this. That’s definitely new. So, like I said, everything just feels a little different and fresh, and that’s a great feeling when you’re 53 and you’ve done a lot of things. To feel young in your mind again creatively is a really nice feeling.
Now, with the new album, Coming Home, you’ve moved towards Americana and country influences. What drew you to that sound in particular?
I totally fell in love maybe five, six years ago. I started listening to it – not for any other reason than it just happened – to a lot of country music and I found myself switching to the station every time I was in my car. There’s just something about the warmth of that Nashville sound that is just so soothing to me. Maybe it was a little pre-COVID, but maybe COVID had something to do with it as well. But it’s definitely when I started writing for this record. It’s really like a very comforting, soothing sound and then I was thinking like, “Wow, I’ve been almost listening to this nonstop for the past two years. I should make a record like this.” There was not a lot of other strategic thought to it than that. I just really felt like doing it. And the Americana genre has always been woven through the K’s Choice stuff as well, in our softer songs. We’ve done a lot of acoustic tours where that kind of stuff comes in. And so, it felt it felt really natural. It didn’t feel forced to me or, “Oh, this is a whole new world.” It just felt really like a world that I could easily live in.
Working on this new album seemed to have opened a new creative chapter for you. What did recording the album bring it out in you as an artist?
It was it’s almost an understatement to say it was a dream come true the way we did it because honestly, once the songs were written, I had told myself, “I want to record this in Nashville, and I’m not doing it until I can find, just the A-list people to do it because that’s the sound I love.” That’s what I was going for. And if I can’t do it with those guys, then I might as well do it with my own guys in Belgium – who would’ve made a fantastic record with me as well. But I really wanted that very specific sound of the musicians that just play that type of music every single day, producers that make that kind of music every single day. And ended up with Tom Bukovac, who’s one of the number one session guitar players in Nashville. It turned out that a friend told me that he’s a K’s Choice fan, and this friend recorded with him 15 years ago, and remembered that there was this one song on my record that he absolutely loves. And so, I just got his number through someone else and cold texted him, “I don’t know if you know who I am.” It was so great because he texted right away with an excerpt of a lyric of one of our songs. “This is one of my favorite all-time songs, and I will put a band together that will blow your mind.” And so, my expectations were very high. And then I went to record and it exceeded all expectations. To sit in the middle of a room in this beautiful Nashville studio and have those guys play my songs was just… I just wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to cry. It was just wonderful.
You’ve experienced success across multiple musical eras. What has remained constant about your approach to songwriting?
I think I alluded to it earlier. I just want to make things that I want to listen to myself. I neither my brother or I have ever started on a K’s Choice record like, “What does, what do people want to hear? What is it? What should we make?” It’s always just been, “Listen, you write songs, I’ll write songs. We’ll bring them together and hopefully they fit together on record and we’ll pick the best ones.” It always comes from a place of like, this is the type of music I’m listening to right now, so this is just what I end up making. This is, again, a record that I would want to listen to in my car or that I want a vinyl of that I want to put on in my living room. And it’s obviously changed over the years and it changes with us, and so the music that comes out of us changes as well, and that’s really the only criteria, whatever makes us happy.
You’ll be performing across Europe this summer. How are audiences responding to the newer Americana material alongside your classic songs?
Really well, actually. I remember when I told my Belgian manager, he was like, “Oh, here we go again.” No one cares about country music in Europe – maybe a little bit in England, maybe a little bit in Germany, but most of the markets where we are, not really. So, it’s not an easy genre to get on the radio. But I have to say the reactions have been just absolutely lovely.
We have a big tour, a five-week tour, coming up. We’re playing in beautiful places every night in the fall. And we just did a 2,000-capacity show in May in Antwerp that was wonderful. So, what I was saying earlier about how we just write things that we love listening to, I think our fans have a real sense of our authenticity when it comes to writing and bringing out songs, and they feel that and they’re interested and want to see what comes next. So even if it’s not in their immediate realm of what they would normally listen to, they’re always open to it and I feel very lucky that we have that kind of fan base, and it seems like they’re following along.
Your fans in America love country music, so are you planning on touring in the United States?
Absolutely, yes. It’s absolutely the plan. We did a tour on the East Coast earlier last year. I’ve done some shows here locally around the West Coast, and it’s absolutely the plan to do lot… as much as I can play here. That’s 100% what I want to do. So hopefully very soon.
You’ve named the album Coming Home. What does coming home mean to you now, both personally and artistically?
Personally, I love living in the States. I’m in California. I’m originally from Belgium but the first time I landed in California I knew. It just felt right to me. And so, this really feels like home. It’s where my wife and my kids are. I still call Belgium home. I stay at my parents’ house when I go back to Europe and it’s the house where I grew up in, so that still feels like home as well. The road is my home. It’s a little bit of a nomadic life as a touring musician. It’s weird at times. It’s a lot of goodbyes but it’s also nice to be able to call different places home. On a musical level, like I was saying, you just you develop as a person, you grow as a person, and the music just kind of grows with you. At this point in my life right now, this feels like exactly the kind of record that I had to make. It feels very personal. It feels like exactly where I am. Coming Home as the title for this record is definitely means that as well. This really feels like it’s 100% me.
After revisiting “Not An Addict” has is it sparked ideas for future reimagining of any other K’s Choice songs?
That’s a good question and I honestly have not thought about that yet. There are no plans yet, but who knows?
You’ve lived several distinct chapters through your life, through the alternative music scene, firefighting, songwriting and now living as a transgender man, revisiting one of the most defining songs of your career. What thread connects all of these different versions of Sam Bettens?
Oh, wow. I hope it doesn’t just sound like just too easy of a word, but it’s always connection. Even the book that I wrote, it helped me. It connected me with myself. It connected me with these wonderful editors that I was working with. It connected me with people who read it in a whole other level than my music does.
After all these years in my career, I am now so much more than I used to appreciating the moment where I connect with people. So, a show in whatever city that I might forget what the name was four months from now, but in the moment we’re all there at the same time. None of us are scrolling. We’re all joyous. We want to be there. We’re together. There were times in my career where I didn’t understand the value of that, and I feel like right now, that it’s just everything. And again, I realize it’s often with a bunch of strangers and people I might never see again, but that’s still what it’s about. We’re just all here. We’re so connected in this moment and gives me a great feeling.
I think people leave our shows with a really happy feeling like they were part of something. And I think that’s why… otherwise I would just write music for myself. You want people to understand you. And so, when it works and when you really feel like, “Wow, they really got it,” you feel less alone. I think connection, whether it’s to myself, to the music, to other people in the band, the people I get to work with, or the fans, connection is the big thread.
Coming Home is available wherever you stream music and also on Sam’s website. Follow Sam on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.
